While the warm, dry weather has cattle in very contented form and relatively easily fed with high dry matter grass going into them, the persistent lack of rainfall is set to take its toll on growth over the next week.

There is no forecasted rainfall in many of the weather models, so, by all means, expect grass growth to fall.

One farmer I talked to this week has seen growth halve in the last two weeks.

In early May, he had a growth of 120kg DM/ha, while last week his growth stood at 100kg DM/ha. This week it has fallen to 60kg.

With a farm cover of 820kg DM/ha, he should be ok for the foreseeable without having to up meal or go in with any silage, but the important thing is to ensure that farm cover does not drop below 550kg to 600kg DM/ha.

Dropping it below this will lead to growth being further impacted.

Surplus

I mentioned last week about taking out surplus, but this was on the understanding that rainfall would occur. Unfortunately, it didn’t for the majority of people.

I also mentioned the long-term silage option, where a strong paddock can be taken out and owed in a few weeks, tightening up the rotation length.

Unless you have a very high average farm cover or a very low demand, you should probably graze this paddock now to help maintain farm cover.

Slurry

There seems to be a fair bit of action across the country with first-cut silage and many would be planning on getting slurry and fertiliser out as soon as possible.

Contamination of second-cut swards, especially with LESS, and ammonia loss would be high in these conditions, so it would be better to hold off until some rainfall is forecast.